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The mesmerizing English debut from the bestselling author of Meddling Kids—whatbegins as a gothic ghost story soon evolves into a wickedly twisted treasure hunt.

Months after the last of the Wells sons jumped out of his bedroom window in Axton House (incidentally forgetting to open it first), a strange couple of Europeans arrive in Virginia to take possession of the estate. A. is the 23-year-old unforeseen scion; Niamh is the mute punk teen girl he refers to as his associate or his bodyguard. Both are ready to settle into their new cushy lifestyle, and the rumors about the mansion being haunted add to their excitement. But ghosts are not in any way the deepest secret of the house.

Through journals, letters, security footage, audio recordings, and ciphers, we follow A. and Niamh as they delve into Wells’ dubious suicide, the secret society he founded and its mysterious Game —a “bourgeois pastime” of global proportions— in Edgar Cantero’s dazzling and original gothic adventure.

“A wonderful, enthralling book. . . . One of those rare literary creations that shortens the long hours of night. You emerge from its pages at sunrise, suddenly aware that you’ve spent the whole night reading. Few authors create such books. Edgar Cantero does it gracefully.” —Jason Mott, bestselling author of The Returned

“A spectacular debut novel. . . . Cantero’s fresh, original prose style and the steady flow of twists, turns, and code breaking will have mystery, thriller, and supernatural fans glued to their seats until they reach the electrifying conclusion.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“Eerie, puckish, and full of surprises. . . . Cantero pays homage to Bram Stoker and H. P. Lovecraft and The Shining, but he’s no less enamored of The X-Files, fax machines, and punk girls with dreads. The result is a propulsive, beguiling novel that is as easy to get swept up in as it is hard to describe.” —Justin Taylor, author of Flings

“Quirky in presentation and good fun throughout, Cantero’s yarn pleases at every turn.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A fun and addictive read.” —LitReactor

“Cantero sets the novel up to be one type of mystery and then he lets other mysteries float into the story. It’s not that he invalidates earlier mysteries . . . but rather he makes them no longer as important because this next one is crazy!” —Raging Biblioholism

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This is an epistolary novel, told through a collection of documents -- letters, video and audio transcripts, notebook conversations -- as a young European referred to only as A. learns that a cousin he's never heard of has died and left him a spooky mansion in Point Bless, Virginia. When he moves to America to take over the house, he brings his close friend Niamh, a mute punk girl from Ireland, and they both buy a collie named Help for a little more companionship in the mansion. And they start doing research about the weird history of eerie old Axton House.

They read strange letters, they research a host of secret codes, they uncover evidence of a secret society that meets at the house every year for unknown purposes, and they search for Axton House's mysteriously vanished butler. And they discover so many unusual, cryptic facts about the mansion.

The previous owner of the house -- Ambrose Wells, A.’s mysterious cousin -- committed suicide by throwing himself out a window -- and at the very same age and from the very same window as his own father had committed suicide. Wells maintained secret, coded correspondence with a number of unknown people, and A. soon becomes obsessed with decoding the secrets of Wells’ secret society, and he begins having a number of vivid, bizarre, frightening dreams. At the same time, it becomes clear that Axton House is haunted, which is just one more thing messing with A.’s rapidly fraying sanity.

It finally gets to be too much, and A. prepares to throw himself from the fateful window -- but the pair eventually discover the cause of A.'s dreams: a large glass orb which, when touched, causes visions of a group of mysterious persons -- some mundane, some terrifying, some exhibiting amazing abilities, and some very clearly not really human. Will A. and Niamh ever unravel the mysteries of Axton House? What is the bizarre secret behind the crystal orbs? And what horrors await them when the Society joins together at the Winter Solstice?

This one drew me in because I've got a serious weakness for turn-of-the-century ghost stories, and the descriptions of the story had all the hallmarks of a great haunted house tale. And though it does start out looking like an old-school ghost story, it soon turns into a mystery -- with a strong emphasis on obscure codes and cryptography -- and finally morphs into an occult action adventure thriller. And I don't think of this as a weakness of the book -- the genre-jumping helps keep it readable, even when a few pages are devoted to exposition and even academic discussions of old codes.

It's a wonderfully readable book -- the chapters mostly consists of short snippets from notebooks, video logs, diaries, and suchlike, which means you shoot through the narrative much faster than the pagecount would have you expecting. And it's hard to quit reading when you know every few pages could reveal some new mystery or unveil something you never expected.

There’s a lot to be said for how great the characters are -- A. makes an excellent protagonist, and the all-too-brief visits with Ambrose Wells’ butler and with the Society members are wonderful. Even Help, the dog, is a joy in every scene he’s in.

But the best character, the one that guarantees that this book gets my recommendation, is Niamh. She has more pure personality than everyone else in the novel put together. Her inability to speak doesn’t keep us from learning more about her, thanks to her ever-present notebooks, as well as A.’s descriptions of her. She’s got twice A.’s brains, ten times his charm, and 100 times his courage. And she has her own facial expression named after her -- the nive. She’s a hilarious badass wrapped up in a perky punk package, and she’s one of my favorite fictional characters ever.

If you get this book, try to look for the version with the amazing cover by Michael J. Windsor -- it's a gorgeous black-and-white jacket featuring the mansion, an intricate fence surrounding the property, and a gigantic eye over everything. True, it won't make any difference to the text between the covers, but it's a beautiful piece of artwork to hold in your hands.

If you love supernatural mysteries, thrills, and adventure -- along with a number of excellent characters -- you’ll definitely want to pick this one up.

This is kind of an odd book to review. It's kind of a visual experience in a way since portions of the book are descriptions of video or sound recordings. There's this interesting disjointed feel to everything as well because the book is comprised of several different things: descriptions, diary entries, newspaper articles, and so on. It's ultimately a fun read but one that will prove frustrating to people who just want a straightfoward book.

In all, I have to say that one of the things that fascinated me the most was that there were multiple layers to this story. You have the first layer, which at first glance appears to be about two people who travel to Virginia to collect an inheritance but are instead drawn into a strange, surreal mystery. However partway through the book you find another layer: the story about our two main characters, A and Niamh, a 20-something year old and a teenager that are fighting a mutual attraction. This might at first seem like it's part of the first story, except that you can tell that there's an entire backstory between them that is only briefly alluded to in the novel. Then there's the final layer, the truth of the matter. Very few of the characters are entirely who they claim to be and the story behind all of *that* is hinted at but never fully revealed. Then on top of all of this, all of these layers are mixed together until you can't entirely tell what's what.

If any of that sounds confusing well... it is confusing. You can enjoy this as a straightforward read if you really want, as you can still read this and entirely enjoy yourself. Some of the more front and center mysteries are solved, so there is a resolution here for the most part. However at the same time there's so much beautiful subtext here that to just ignore the other layers in favor of having a neatly tied up story is a bit of a shame.

That said, if you're looking for a book with layers (like a certain ogre) then you're in for a treat here. The beauty of this book is that it can ultimately be what you want it to be when it comes to the unresolved plot issues, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also have to admit that I'd really love to see a big screen adaptation of this, since the book's layout would lend itself exceedingly well to film.

I came to this book after reading and loving Meddling Kids. Im a fan of this authors particular unique, writing style which some people are not. On top of his out of the box writing style this guy really has a beautiful way with words as well. This story is told through article clippings, voice recordings, camera shots, etc. It is paranormal activity but a obviously a much better story. The plot in this book is what really impressed me- a 23 year old inherits a mansion and soon discovers theres a secret society that meets every year there for a "hunt". This book was much more complicated than Meddling Kids, it very much focuses on the details of the mystery and every now and then I felt pretty lost, thats the only con for me. Another thing that draws me to this particular author is that he writes humor very well. His characters are always so perfect to me too, you can just feel them if you know what I mean. I love that all his books take place in the 90s, even though its not always so obvious. The romance in his books are not ever typical and I love that. Most of the setting took place in this house, which I like a steady setting personally, meddling kids moved around quite alot. Overall A fun read.